


The Prom Job

by MetamorphicRocky



Category: Final Space (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Blood, F/M, John is mentioned, Trauma, kinda spoilers for season 2??? not really, this was intense to write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 05:08:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20058517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MetamorphicRocky/pseuds/MetamorphicRocky
Summary: "Everything about prom brings me to an even worse place."What happened to Gary at prom that made it so bad?





	The Prom Job

Gary can't remember how they met. Was it at the park? The mall? Oh, wait, he passed her by while riding his new hovercycle. He had just stolen it, and she said he looked cool. So, obviously Gary had to give the first girl to talk to him in years a ride. It made perfect sense, and now he has a girlfriend. It all worked out nicely. He still has the bike, too. Cops never caught him, which was an amazing stroke of luck.

Now, Gary is sitting on the edge of Sam's bed, kicking his feet idly as he waits for her to come back with popcorn. They've been together for a couple of weeks, and it has been amazing. It's been so long since Gary last spent time with someone his own age and enjoyed it.

"I got the goods!" Sam screams as she kicks the door open, her curly hair flying everywhere. Her arms are stuffed to the brim with snacks, and without warning, she tosses it all at Gary.

The force of the snacks pushes Gary down onto the mattress with a small, "Oof!" 

Sam snorts. "For a self-proclaimed badass, you don't really act like one."

Gary shoves the snacks off of him and sits up, an offended look on his face. "Oh, I am such a badass. Look at this jacket. My bike? Badass. Therefore, I am badass."

"I don't think badasses use the word therefore," she says, sitting down next to him. She gives him a kiss on the cheek, and Gary feels his face heat up intensely. Sam laughs, a light sound that makes his heart flutter. "Or blush when they get a kiss."

"Well–I, uh," Gary stammers, "I was, um, caught off guard by, uh, that.

Sam rolls her eyes and hums. "You're losing your status as my kickass boyfriend with that. Wanna try to reclaim the kickass part?"

"Your deep, burning desire for me was felt physically, was all." Gary places one of his hands on her cheek, bringing her in for a quick yet passionate kiss. When they pull away, Sam is blushing.

Nailed it! Gary smirks. "Who isn't a badass? Hmm? Because sweet heavenly fire, I think I just kissed the hell out of you."

"Okay, you win this one. Now, let's watch the hell out of this movie!"

Sam rips open the bag of popcorn and digs in while Gary takes the remote and plays the new action movie they wanted to watch. Throughout the movie, they lean into each other and make ridiculous comments about whatever is going on. By all standards, it's the most cliche movie they've ever seen, but Gary hasn't had fun like this in years. 

It's nice, to have someone who only wants him because she likes him, not because he's better at fitting into smaller spaces. He hopes this warm feeling in his chest never goes away.

During the last fight scene, Sam slips her hand into his. "Hey, you wanna come to my prom?"

"Prom?" Gary's eyes flit to Sam, her eyes still glued to the screen. "Heck yeah I would. When is it?"

"Next Saturday at eight."

Gary feels a pit form in the bottom of his stomach. Everything was going so well, but now it could all fall apart.

"I have a family thing then," Gary says, his voice clearly displaying his disappointment.

"Boo!" Sam moans. "Your family is always keeping you busy, can't you get out of it?"

"I don't know...," he trails off. 

But then he notices Sam's pleading eyes. He can't break her heart like this. She makes him happy, and he wants to be happy more than anything. Scratch that, he _needs_ to be happy. 

"You know what? It doesn't matter what my parents say. I'll be there." 

Sam's smile as he squeezes her hand makes whatever consequence of this worth it already.

* * *

Gary walks into the dimly lit garage, tossing his helmet onto an empty bench. A car is propped up in the center of the room, old and rusted, but still useful as a source of parts.

"Kid, grab me another beer and a torque wrench. The big one," a gruff voice demands from underneath the car. 

Gary rolls his eyes and does as asked, swiping a beer and a soda from the fridge before grabbing the wrench. He tosses the wrench carelessly towards the waiting hand and plops down on the dirty cement floor next to the car. 

He hears a mumbled noise of thanks among the odd noises of car parts shifting around. Gary takes a sip of his soda and tries to ignore how the ground is freezing despite it being the middle of May. 

"There it is." 

Tom pulls something out from underneath the car and slides out, sitting up and sipping his beer. Gary has no clue what it is, but Tom looks even grosser than usual. His salt and pepper hair is greasy, sweat slicking it back in a messy way. The scratchy beard he has is coated in oil. His white shirt is covered in stains of all sorts, and Gary has to restrain himself from cringing.

"If you're sitting there, it means you want something. Spit it out," Tom orders.

"You know that job we're doing? Next week? On Saturday? The one with the–." A growl cuts off Gary's rambling. The blond clears his throat nervously. "Right, well, you don't absolutely need me for that, yeah? I mean, anyone could sneak into the vents and be a lookout, right?"

Tom stands, so Gary does the same. The man towers over him, a brute of a man, but Gary tries really hard not to let that intimidate him...even though he can snap Gary in half if he really wants to.

"If you don't come, you won't get paid."

Gary swallows a lump in his throat. "Fine."

"And you're out."

Gary's eyes blow wide, his heart stuttering in his chest. He has to be joking, he _has to be_. 

"What?" Gary splutters, his arms gesturing frantically. "We had a deal! You can't do that!"

Tom laughs, loud and booming in the empty garage. There's an icy glint in his black eyes that sends chills down Gary's spine. He advances towards Gary, causing the teen to back up until he hits the wall. Tom painfully shoves a hairy finger into Gary's chest, leaning in close to his face. Gary can strongly smell the acrid stench of motor oil and alcohol that clings to Tom all the time.

"I'm the boss. I make the rules, boy. Don't you forget that," the man sneers, growling in anger. "Get the job done and you can do whatever the fuck pleases you, but I won't be this kind if you ever try to cross me again."

Before Tom walks away, he slaps Gary, leaving a stinging red mark across the left side of his face.

He waits, shaking against the wall, until he hears the slam of Tom's bedroom door to go to his dingy room. The blond collapses onto his bed, not even bothering to change his clothes. Gary hugs his pillow to his chest and wishes for life to go back to the way it was before...everything.

* * *

The day of the job rolls around. Gary has let Sam know that he's going to her prom, but he'll most likely be late. He has a stolen tux that matches her dress prepped and ready for the moment the job finishes. He'll make it, no matter what.

Gary is currently sitting in the back of a van, surrounded by men who are significantly bigger than him. It isn't crowded at all, nope. And Gary definitely doesn't feel more and more nervous as the drive continues, that would be ridiculous.

His knee is bouncing, and he knows that it's pissing off the guy next to him. To avoid thinking about it, Gary looks through his jacket's pockets for the fiftieth time to check and make sure that he has all of his tools. Of course they're all there. The gun resting awkwardly on his hip doesn't ease his anxiousness in the slightest. Gary is used to simple thieving, not high stakes robberies. 

Damn it, he just wants to go to prom with his girlfriend. Does everything have to be so complicated in his life?

All of a sudden, Gary is roughly shoved by the guy he was annoying. Oh, so the car stopped. Great. It's showtime.

Gary hops out and walks to the dumpster next to the bank, jumping on top of it to reach the grate that leads to the ventilation system.

"Don't fuck this up, boy," Tom snarls. 

"What a nice vote of confidence," Gary mumbles under his breath. "Okay, no buffer or warm up. You've got this, Gary."

He quickly makes work of the vent, unscrewing it and sliding in. Gary begins crawling through the vents, following the set of instructions he memorized to get him to the room he wants.

Within a couple of minutes, Gary kicks open a grate and drops down into the security room. He only has a few minutes until the guard comes back from his break, so the teen quickly disables the security systems in the safe room and sneaks back into the vents, putting the grate back in its place. 

"All set to go in," Gary says into his earpiece as he makes his way to their target. 

He's thankfully small enough to move fast in these things, so he reaches the safe room with time to spare. He glances at his watch to see the time, and everything is going according to schedule. If this goes well, he can be at Sam's prom at nine. 

Gary lays in the vents and watches the moment the guys burst into the safe room, attacking all of the guards and knocking them out quickly. Once everyone is down, Gary hops out of the vent. Tom gives him a hard pat on the back, and that's as close to a "good job" as the teen will ever get.

Gary takes out his never-before-used-by-him gun and holds it awkwardly as the men work on breaking into the safe and stealing everything they want. 

He's the lookout. Easy job. Just standing there. And looking. Easy peasy.

Until it isn't. 

The men are finishing up and stealing the last of the money and valuable items rich people keep in here when Gary sees him; one guard is waking up.

"Um, hey, one of them is waking up. Do something!" Gary whisper-yells at the group. 

Tom turns around to see and just shrugs his shoulders. "Shoot him."

"What?"

"If you want to live, just kill him. Now, shoot, you fuckin' dumbass!" Tom yells.

That really wakes the guy up, and the guard snaps to attention and sees Gary, shaking with a gun in his grip directly next to him. The guard snatches Gary's ankle, dragging him down to the ground. He moves to get on top of Gary and subdue him, probably attempting to rip the gun away from him and shoot the group, but the moment he starts wrestling with Gary, the trigger is pulled. 

Gary cries out as the body falls on top of him, blood splattering all over the teen's body. He scrambles to get out from underneath the corpse, smearing his hands in the blood in the process. 

The guys are finished, and Gary stares at them blankly as their mouths move, clearly giving him orders to get moving. But he can't hear them. He keeps moving anyways, running after them and trying to keep his breathing steady. 

He doesn't know what's going on beyond that he's moving and there's blood on his hands and oh god he _killed someone holy shit someone is dead because of him_—

All of a sudden Gary realizes that they're back in the garage already as Tom slaps him on the back. 

"Haha! Your first kill! Wasn't it fantastic?" Tom is cheering along with the other men, beers in their hands and bags of riches surrounding them. They all look happy, celebrating a successful job. Gary stands there in shock, his bloody hands shaking violently.

He runs to the bathroom and rips off his blood stained clothing, tossing them as far away from him as possible. He turns on the sink and scrubs viciously at his hands because there's so much blood and god he did this, it's his fault that a man is dead and no one except him is upset about it—

Gary can barely see anything through the tears except red, red, _red_, yet he distantly wonders how his dad would feel if he could know that his son just killed a man.

* * *

"Gary? Where's your tux?" Sam questions as she raises an eyebrow at Gary's navy Infinity Guard hoodie and jeans. She seems mad, and Gary can barely even process it at the moment. 

He knows that everyone from her school—the school he would have gone to if his life hadn't gone to shit—is staring, but he doesn't care. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters to him anymore, except her, but he can't even keep that one thing.

"I'm sorry, but I have to go. I wish I could stay, Sam."

Sam cups his face and wipes away tears he didn't know were there. "Gary, what's wrong? You can tell me."

She looks so beautiful in her black dress, pink flowers adorning the bottom of it. Her hair is in a neat bun, some curls framing her face and the freckles dotting her dark skin. He wishes he could have enjoyed tonight, but the universe just won't let him be happy. 

He doesn't dare touch her, fearing his previously stained hands would ruin her beauty. 

Gary kisses her, forcing himself to remember this moment and what love feels like before he has to leave her and never come back. He must have always been destined to live a life of loneliness.

Sam pulls away first, tears ruining her perfect make up. "Bye, Sam," he whispers.

And then he runs, slipping between the crowd and launching himself at his bike. He puts his helmet on and slips his backpack on, and then leaves it all behind.

Gary is sixteen when he kills his first man and leaves his hometown. And he doesn't look back once.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a prompt on Tumblr so if you want me to write something, my askbox is open right now!
> 
> This one was a doozy but fun as hell to write.


End file.
